


still i know i'll see you there

by KelseyO



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, HERE HAVE A FIC, accidentally had a POI dream the other night and when i woke up everything was actually coherent, these things happen i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 09:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5086291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelseyO/pseuds/KelseyO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hiya, Harry.” “Ms. Groves, I’m afraid--” “I’m already on my way, Harold. She told me as soon as She saw.” He blinks. “Saw what?” “I don’t know yet.” The line goes dead.</p><p>(In which Shaw is compromised, Reese is busy, and Root is... Root. Takes place sometime between 4x01 and 4x11. Title from "Come a Little Closer" by Cage the Elephant. Beta'd by thebubblyterror and halfabagoffritos.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	still i know i'll see you there

**Author's Note:**

> Finally watching the thing. Feedback is appreciated. No spoilers past 4x11, pls.

“I’m almost there, Finch.” She cocks her gun and flattens herself against the brick wall, takes a steadying breath. “Remind me again who I’m looking for?”

_“His name is David Larsen. Late forties, dark hair with a large tattoo around his neck.”_

She tightens her grip. “Got it.”

_“However, Ms. Shaw, I might suggest that you focus more on the building’s security than on our subject. There’s a fifty-fifty chance he’ll be showing up at the marina instead and I don’t want to put you in harm’s way if it isn’t absolutely vital.”_

The corner of her mouth twitches and she arches an eyebrow. “It’s like you don’t know me at all,” she murmurs. “I’m going in.”

_“Ms. Shaw, I highly--”_

“I’ll be in touch,” she says before tapping her earpiece to silence Finch, then slowly makes her way into the center of the building. After several minutes she still senses no movement, not even a careful footstep or an exhale, and can’t help but pout at the absolute silence. “Of course I got the bogus location.”

She taps her earpiece again. “Hey, Finch, does your machine have control over coin tosses?”

There’s a sharp sting at the side of her neck and she whips around to find a man holding a syringe; she rockets her shin between his legs and socks him in the nose, then whips the butt of her gun against his temple and watches him hit the ground.

_“Ms. Shaw, are you alright?”_

She kneels down and picks up the syringe, examines it, then tucks it into her pocket. “Better than this guy whose nose I just broke,” she replies, glancing around the warehouse. “Thanks for not letting me down.”

_“I… you’re very welcome, Ms. Shaw. I know I can only do so much remotely, but--”_

“Wasn’t talking to you, Finch.”

He clears his throat. _“Of course. Now, if you’re certain there’s nothing more to be done at your location, I’m sure Mr. Reese would appreciate having backup at the marina.”_

“Music to my ears.” Another tap at her earpiece so she can have a silent car ride, but as she exits the building, she grimaces and looks down like she’s searching for some obvious source of discomfort.

The seconds tick by and she shakes her head, but a few paces later she lets out a sharp grunt and wraps her arm around her stomach. “What the hell was that?” she asks no one in particular, only to double over and drop her gun. “Reese, if your precious Thai food got me sick, I’m gonna force you to eat whatever comes out of me tonight.” Her breathing is ragged now, and soon the heaving becomes violent and she vomits onto the pavement in front of her.

She looks at the mess, brings a few fingertips to her bottom lip, and they’re stained red.

“Ah, crap.”

A wishful glance toward her car waiting ten yards away, but then her eyes are squeezed closed and her face shows nothing but agony.

When she collapses, she’s only vaguely aware of the persistent beeping in her ear.

.

Every uninterrupted ring from the other line has his fingertips dancing with all-the-more fervor across the keyboard, trying anything and everything he can think of to get even a microsecond of audio or video of Ms. Shaw’s status, but as one minute becomes two and then three, he begins to fear the worst.

“Mr. Reese,” he greets as John mercifully answers his phone, “we may have a situation. Ms. Shaw is no longer answering my calls and I fear she’s been compromised.”

_“She’s gone dark for an hour or two before, Finch. You know how she feels about helicopter parenting.”_

He’s still staring at the building schematics on the screen in front of him, as if they’ll show him some sort of indication that all is well. “Something simply doesn’t feel right, Mr. Reese, and I would be much more at ease if--”

_“Finch, you know I can’t leave if Larsen is on his way over. You’re gonna have to call someone else.”_

Bear is watching him carefully; he rather wishes he’d sent him with Ms. Shaw. “Very well. Please keep me updated regarding Mr. Larsen.” He disconnects and immediately dials the number he’s finding himself using more and more often.

_“Hiya, Harry.”_

“Ms. Groves, I’m afraid--”

_“I’m already on my way, Harold. She told me as soon as She saw.”_

He blinks. “Saw what?”

_“I don’t know yet.”_

The line goes dead.

.

In fact, she’s only a mile from the warehouse when Harold joins the party, and driving so fast that she kills the engine before she kills the call.

She knows she’s supposed to use the east entrance, and that she’ll find a purpose for the vials in her pocket (one full and one empty) that she swiped from a nearby hospital, and that she has roughly eight minutes to find Shaw before…

Well, she has eight minutes.

There’s a body four paces ahead—no, scratch that, he’s still breathing—and she lifts a wallet from his jacket. “Nice to meet you, Stephen,” she says, then watches as he groans and covers the large welt on his forehead. “I don’t have long to chat, but I’d like you to point me toward my friend Sameen, if you wouldn’t mind.”

He makes a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh. “It’s unstoppable,” he breathes. “She won’t make it.”

“Such a pessimist,” she sighs, then shoots him point-blank and glances around for exit options before settling on a hallway to her right.

She smiles. “I agree.”

The vials in her pocket begin to feel heavier and heavier as she closes in on Shaw’s location, which—oh, dear. “I don’t suppose you’re taking a nap in the middle of the parking lot?” she calls out, then kneels beside Shaw, who’s curled into a tight, trembling ball. “I didn’t think so,” she murmurs to herself and lifts Shaw slightly so her head is resting in her lap. “What did he do to you?”

“S…st-tomach,” Shaw barely manages through clenched teeth, her skin pale and glistening with a cold sweat.

Root pulls out her vials and examines each of them in turn. “I’m assuming this is intended to fight whatever he put in your system… But how are we going to--?”

Shaw forces her hand down to her pocket and her fingers clamp stiffly around something, and Root’s smiling again.

“You just think of everything, don’t you.” She eases Shaw’s hand out of the way and takes out the syringe, and when she sees the few remaining drops in the tube, she opens the empty vial. “I’m sure I can persuade someone to analyse this for us,” she says, injecting the leftovers into the vial and tucking it away for later. “Now let’s see what we can do for you.”

She tips the other vial upside-down and pokes the syringe through the barrier. “I know reusing weaponized medical supplies isn’t the most ideal way of doing this”--she adjusts Shaw’s ponytail and sticks the needle into her neck--“but our options are a bit limited this evening. I hope you don’t mind.”

It only takes about thirty seconds after the syringe empties for the tension to begin leaving Shaw’s muscles; she unfolds inch by inch and her breathing evens out, and eventually she slumps against Root’s leg and goes still.

“That’s better,” Root observes with a sigh of relief, tossing the syringe into the darkness before getting to her feet and pulling Shaw up by her under-arms, then dragging her to her car. “Now what say you and I go back to my place?”

.

Whatever she’s lying on is warm and soft and therefore definitely not pavement, and when her eyes blink open she finds herself in a plain, dimly-lit bedroom; Root’s next to her, propped on her elbow and watching her almost adoringly. “Stalking me again, I see,” she mutters.

“Is it really so hard to just say thank you?”

Shaw shakes her head. “Over my dead body.”

“That’s a bit of a catch-22, then, isn’t it?” Root muses, gently stroking Shaw’s hair away from her face. “If I save your life I get no thanks, but if you die, then you _can’t_ thank me.” She frowns slightly. “And you’d have no reason to, because I wouldn’t have saved your life in the first place.”

“Okay, this is way too much philosophising for someone who was just lying in a parking lot with Satan himself in her stomach.” Shaw makes a face and rubs at the side of her neck. “And if you tell _anyone_ you found me in the fetal position…”

Root gives her a look. “Sameen, you were given a man-made virus engineered specifically to cripple enemies. That’s a level of pain not many people can handle.”

Shaw makes eye contact now. “If you tell _anyone_ …”

“Then the machine will probably give Harold my number, and he and John will have to protect me from you,” she replies with a thoughtful twinkle in her eyes. “And wouldn’t that be interesting.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Shaw mutters, “you’re hogging the covers.”


End file.
